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And would say after her, if she said 'No'. 852

Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,

From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,

And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast

The sun ariseth in his majesty; 856

Who doth the world so gloriously behold,

That cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.

Venus salutes him with this fair good morrow:

'O thou clear god, and patron of all light, 860

From whom each lamp and shining star doth borrow

The beauteous influence that makes him bright,

There lives a son that suck'd an earthly mother,

May lend thee light, as thou dost lend to other'

This said, she hasteth to a myrtle grove,865

Musing the morning is so much o'erworn,

And yet she hears no tidings of her love;

She hearkens for his hounds and for his horn: 868

Anon she hears them chant it lustily,

And all in haste she coasteth to the cry.

And as she runs, the bushes in the way

Some catch her by the neck, some kiss her face,872

Some twine about her thigh to make her stay:

She wildly breaketh from their strict embrace,

Like a milch doe, whose swelling dugs do ache,

Hasting to feed her fawn hid in some brake. 876

By this she hears the hounds are at a bay;

Whereat she starts, like one that spies an adder

Wreath'd up in fatal folds just in his way,

The fear whereof doth make him shake and shudder;

Even so the timorous yelping of the hounds 881

Appals her senses, and her spirit confounds.

For now she knows it is no gentle chase,

But the blunt boar, rough bear, or lion proud, 884

Because the cry remaineth in one place,

Wilere fearfully the dogs exclaim aloud:

Finding their enemy to be so curst,

They all strain courtesy who shall cope him first.

This dismal cry rings sadly in her ear, 889

Througll which it enters to surprise her heart;

Who, overcome by doubt and bloodless fear,

With cold-pale weakness numbs each feeling part;

Like soldiers, when their captain once doth yield,

They basely fly and dare not stay the field.

Thus stands she in a trembling ecstasy,

Till, cheering up her senses sore dismay'd, 896

She tells them 'tis a causeless fantasy,

And childish error, that they are afraid;

Bids them leave quaking, bids them fear no more:

And with that word she spied the hunted boar;

Whose frothy mouth bepainted all with red,901

Like milk and blood being mingled both together,

A second fear through all her sinews spread,

Which madly hurries her she knows not whither: 904

This way she runs, and now she will no further,

But back retires to rate the boar for murther.

A thousand spleens bear her a thousand ways,

She treads the path that she untreads again; 908

Her more than haste is mated with delays,

Like the proceedings of a drunken brain,

Full of respects, yet nought at all respecting,

In hand with all things, nought at all effecting.

Here kennel'd in a brake she finds a hound, 913

And asks the weary caitiff for his master,

And there another licking of his wound,

Gainst venom'd sores the only sovereign plaster;916

And here she meets another sadly scowling,

To whom she speaks, and he replies with howling.

When he hath ceas'd his ill-resounding noise,

Another flap-mouth'd mourner, black and grim, 920

Against the welkin volleys out his voice;

Another and another answer him,

Clapping their proud tails to the ground below,

Shaking their scratch'd ears, bleeding as they go.

Look, how the world's poor people are amaz'd 925

At apparitions, signs, and prodigies,

Whereon with fearful eyes they long have gaz'd,

Infusing them with dreadful prophecies; 928

So she at these sad sighs draws up her breath,

And, sighing it again, exclaims on Death.

'Hard-favour'd tyrant, ugly, meagre, lean,931

Hateful divorce of love,'—thus chides she Death,—

'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean

To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,

Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set

Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?936

'If he be dead, O no! it cannot be,

Seeing his beauty, thou shouldst strike at it;

O yes! it may; thou hast no eyes